Florentino Galang Lavarias
Florentino Galang Lavarias was born March 14, 1957, in Santa Ines, Mabalacat, Pampanga. He studied business management courses at Holy Angel University (1978) and philosophy and theology at San Carlos Seminary.
He was ordained a priest for San Fernando on September 26, 1985, at Our Lady of Grace Parish, by Oscar Cruz. He served as vice-pastor of the Cathedral of San Fernando (1985–1986), as spiritual director of the Mother of Good Counsel Seminary (1986–1989), as director of its Pre-College (1989–1995) and College Department (1995–1996), as director of the Committee for the Formation of Priests (1995–1997), as pastor of Lord’s Ascension Parish, San Fernando (1996–1998), and as member then head of the main staff of the Assisted Intensive Renewal of the Episcopal Conference (1998–2004).
He was appointed Bishop of Iba in 2004 and consecrated on August 12, 2004. He was appointed Metropolitan Archbishop of San Fernando on July 25, 2014, succeeding Paciano Aniceto, and took possession on October 27, 2014, at the Metropolitan Cathedral of San Fernando. He later served as Apostolic Administrator of Balanga (2023–2025).
No decree, permission, suppression, expansion, or transfer of the Traditional Latin Mass naming Archbishop Lavarias, in Iba, in San Fernando, or as administrator of Balanga, was found. His August 29, 2024, decree raising the feast of Our Lady of the Remedios to a solemnity in the archdiocese is a devotional-calendar act, not a Traditional Latin Mass act, and is not counted as one.
His May 6, 2021, circular removing a priest from ministry after a preliminary investigation is a governance act, not a liturgical act, and is recorded in works with the priest unnamed (the priest was not named in the sources checked). The archdiocesan website (rcasfp.com) could not be text-retrieved; a web-only diocesan act would not have surfaced.